


Moonrise

by corvidity



Category: Gintama
Genre: F/F, Light Angst, Missing Scene, Post-Red Spider Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 20:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4113196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidity/pseuds/corvidity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tsukuyo is still haunted by the aftermath of Jiraia’s assault on Yoshiwara, and not all ghosts are so easily exorcised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonrise

**Author's Note:**

> I think I’d situate this fic after episode 181 with a more open-ended interpretation of the ending regarding how Tsukuyo feels about protecting her friends and relying on others.

The full moon was pale but luminous, casting its light over Yoshiwara after so many years of a darkness many had called eternal, but which had ended not so long ago (an eternity ago, some might venture to say). Now the moonlight that flooded the streets and the few traces of a breeze were reminders of their present freedom.

That was the backdrop against which Hinowa found Tsukuyo, standing on the balcony of Hinowa’s apartment gazing upwards. Smoke curled around her fingers, drifting upwards into the bright-clear sky and outlining the moon, wreathing her face. Below them, the light flowed in a slow-moving river of people ignoring the lateness of the hour. Tsukuyo tapped her pipe, letting loose the ashes.

“You’re up late, Tsukki.”

Hinowa smiled, rolling her wheelchair to a stop a few paces behind Tsukuyo.

“I could say the same of you, oh Sun of Yoshiwara. Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

Tsukuyo hadn’t moved, so familiar with Hinowa’s presence that even in her sleep she would have known her. Silence draped itself in the petty conversation neither could muster.

“Are you thinking of Jiraia again?” Hinowa’s voice was soft, no accusation or reproach.

Tsukuyo grimaced. It was a ventured remark, timid, hesitant of her reaction. She was, she hated to admit, a little ashamed that a dead man held such sway over them. His memory should have long fled with the ashes and smoke, but it lingered in the crevices of burnt buildings and the pungent smell of oil that still pooled in the darker, deeper corners of Yoshiwara. Perhaps even in places where the Night King’s claws held fast. The night breeze fluttered the curtains, a sharp, biting cold heralding the winter.

She shivered.

“Come inside, you’ll catch a cold if you continue standing there.”

The Moon of Yoshiwara faced her Sun for the first time that night – and wondered, had she devoted more than just her life to her?

“ _There are things colder than the night_ ,” she wanted to say, but the words only came out in a stream of semi-exasperated smoke.

Hinowa’s eyes were warm, her smile small and tempered, not as elaborate as the adoration she had bestowed on customers as Yoshiwara’s Head Courtesan, but also unlike the fond gazes she threw at Seita when she didn’t know Tsukuyo was watching. Jiraia had wanted to extinguish Hinowa with a snap of his fingers, and the fear then was still present, in an iron hold around Tsukuyo’s heart. The people she considered her friends were so fragile it frightened her. Perhaps Jiraia had been right to claim she should rely on no one. Gintoki though, had told her the opposite, that having people to protect was a strength, a precious burden to bear.

Tsukuyo paused in thought. Gintoki Sakata, the Saviour of Yoshiwara. His face in the half-shadows that night had been unreadable, but his words and his motions spoke well enough for him. Tsukuyo _knew_ that the ferocity which he fought with wasn’t from bravado or recklessness. He had seen his own friends laid bare, then snatched from him like sakura petals in the fading months of spring. The people he cared for, the people _she_ cared for, they lit up the night, and could just as easily be swallowed by it.

She shivered again. But she did not move from the balcony.

“I see you’re not going to move all night.” Hinowa rolled her wheelchair forward. “So I’ll keep you company. There must be a face in the moon that’s so transfixed you.” Hinowa muffled a giggle with her sleeve. “Don’t tell me it’s Gintoki…?”

Blushing a red so luminescent that would have put the sun to shame, Tsukuyo vehemently shook her head. “Hinowa! Of course not, don’t be so crass!” She stuck the pipe in her mouth and gave an angry puff, though there was nothing especially vicious about her retort.

They both stared out at the moon, now at its peak in the sky.

“You know,” Hinowa began, gently, gazing at her folded hands, “Jiraia was your mentor in name only. Whatever he taught you was twisted by his selfish devotion, his desire to make you a tool. Would any proper mentor have used you the way he did?” Her voice hardened. “His sister died for him, and how did he repay her? By striving to create another in her place, instead of living and embracing the present. Any chance of redemption he might have had he threw away the minute he chose the path to his own destruction.”

“Hinowa, none of that changes the fact he raised me…!” 

“I know it doesn’t. He chose that role. But his burdens were not yours to shoulder; he made them yours without you knowing.”

Hinowa let out a quiet sigh.  

“I’m not asking you to hate him; I want you to understand that what he did was _wrong_. The lessons he learned and passed on to you were meaningless, coming from a man like him.”

It was Tsukuyo’s turn to sigh. Jiraia’s burdens she had learned to bear, for they had been so very light in the end. His words, on the other hand, were as strong and smooth as his webs. Evidently she could not discount the atrocities committed by her former master, yet she held some dwindling respect for his teachings. Of course, she knew she could rely on her friends – Hinowa, the Yorozuya trio, her Hyakka, even Seita. But the _fear_ of losing them forever, fuelled by the remnants of Jiraia’s words, paralysed her.

She snorted, frustration curling from her pipe as she tried to disguise the other, overwhelming emotion.  

“I know that, I know. But Jiraia almost took all of you away; he almost took _you_ away,” she said, her voice trailing off.

 _From me_ hovered around both women, like smoke caught under naked moonlight.

Hinowa opened her mouth, and closed it again. She looked out over Yoshiwara (in moonlight and not flames), tracing the familiar streets and shops. The Hyakka would be on their nightly patrol, defending their home and their friend, the woman who had taken them in without a word of judgement. What would it take for Tsukuyo to realise she wasn’t alone? That she had a family and people who loved her, who would protect her just as she protected them?

“You’re not weak, and neither are we,” Hinowa said, tone firm. She reached out, touching Tsukuyo’s cheek, looking into her eyes. Tsukuyo blinked, her breath quickening. Hinowa’s gaze was bright and steady, defiant, and so terribly, terribly kind. She was still smiling. Unsure, Tsukuyo wanted to look down or away, anywhere else, but the deeper and longer she stared at Hinowa, the less she wanted to. This was whom she had been fighting to protect all along, this woman, all of her – frailties and strengths alike. 

Hinowa was courage and security, burning with compassion. Hinowa was quiet suffering and understanding; Hinowa was winter sunlight, reaching across so much space to touch her, to warm her heart and loosen Jiraia’s grip. Hinowa was home, and Hinowa was far from weak.

“Neither am I, Tsukki,” she repeated, so softly. _Neither am I weak._

Tsukuyo wondered when it had gotten so warm. She was leaning in, could feel Hinowa’s warm breath, and she knew what came next, really, but what was she supposed to –

“You’re so thick sometimes,” Hinowa laughed. And she pulled Tsukuyo down and kissed her, simple and soft, the moon round and bright behind them.  

**Author's Note:**

> This came about because of a friend who somehow pushed me into writing my first ever fanfic, and while I'm grateful to her for getting me to write again, my productivity of late has been terrible, because all I'm doing now is writing fanfic. Thanks Jo.


End file.
